The finance classroom meets the outside world (and vice-versa). Back away slowly from the computer with your hands up and your mind open, and with luck nobody gets hurt.

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Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Monday/Tuesday Link Dump

Yesterday was full with classes and some writing. I've been working on a project since what seem like forever, and the last few parts just refuse to be finish. With a bit of work, I may be able to stick a stake in its heart and submit it to a journal this week.

So, this is actually the Monday/Tuesday Link Dump:

The Capital Spectator opines on inverted yield curves, and also gives some nice historical summary.

John Sence of Marketwatch gives his take on "fundamental indexing". The best quote of the piece comes at the end: "If anybody has a black box that really worked," he added, "they'd be out on a trading desk or a hedge fund, not doing it for an ETF." I'll have to use that line in my classes - it's a keeper.

Bloomberg reports on the conviction in the insider-trading case of Jeffrey Royer, and Anthony Elgindy. Royer, an FBI agent, gave information on companies under investigation to Elgindy, who'd short the companies and subsequently criticize them in his online newsletter. And Eliott Spitzer was nowhere in sight.

Finally, Biryini's Ticker Sense reports on an interesting pattern - since October, 2002, 60% of the gains in the S&P have come on the first of the month. Color me a bit skeptical that this is a tradable pattern - you can find a lot of patterns in market data (often because there's simply a lot of data and we have a lot of computing power). But 48 data points is not a lot to base a strategy on. Still, it is interesting...